Pythagorean numerology
Numerology Life Path, master numbers and what the numbers in your birth date and name reveal
Numerology turns your birth date and name into a handful of core numbers. Each one, from 1 to 9 and the master numbers 11, 22 and 33, describes a set of strengths, lessons and tendencies. Start with your Life Path number, the most important number in your chart.
- 9 core numbers
- 3 master numbers
- 5 numbers in your chart
- Since c. 530 BCE
Numerology: an introduction and short history
Numerology is the belief that numbers carry meaning, and that the numbers in your birth date and name can describe your character and path in life. Modern Western numerology reduces dates and names to the single numbers 1 to 9, keeps the master numbers 11, 22 and 33, and reads each one as a set of strengths, lessons and tendencies.
Its deepest roots are in ancient Greece. The philosopher Pythagoras, who founded a school in southern Italy around 530 BCE, taught that the whole universe could be understood through number, and his followers gave each number its own character. Other traditions gave numbers to letters: Greek isopsephy and Hebrew gematria looked for hidden meaning in the number values of words and names.
Numerology as most people know it today is surprisingly modern. In the early 20th century the American writer L. Dow Balliett combined Pythagorean ideas with letter values, and later writers such as Juno Jordan shaped the system of Life Path, Expression and Soul Urge numbers that most numerologists use, including the Birth Destiny calculator. The palmist Cheiro popularised a rival Chaldean system in the 1920s.
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